In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Morgan Guyton argues that “prayer as a pro forma function of ‘civic religion'” violates the spirit of Jesus’ teachings:
Nothing is more disrespectful to God than to use our supposed conversation with him as a way of leveraging our own legitimacy. … It’s not only cheap and shallow, but it actively sabotages the secret reward that God wants to give us through prayer. How can I have intimacy with God if my conversation with God is a public performance and an inner farce? There is nothing in the world like the rich intimacy that we receive from a true spiritual connection with God. And the way we gain this intimacy is when we pray in secret. Jesus did this over and over again in his ministry life: he would always retreat to a quiet place to pray.
To me, prayer is primarily about creating a monastery where we can sit and enjoy the presence of God. It’s awesome when we can share that monastery with other people. The world needs that monastery more desperately than ever in our era of spiritually alienating constant “connectivity.” … We can and should bring the monastery of prayer into public, but it must take the form of sharing a secret with others if they are to receive the secret reward that God wants to give them. If praying in public is about marking turf and standing up for the “rights” of “persecuted” Christians, then the secret reward is utterly lost. No inner monastery is created by a prayer that has been clipped onto the beginning of a secular meeting.
Our coverage of Greece v. Galloway is here.
The Dish 